The Dells. Michael Blair

      We acknowledge the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

      Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

       J. Kirk Howard, President

      Printed and bound in Canada.

      Printed on recycled paper.

      www.dundurn.com

      For Hugh Fairlie Blair (1921–2006)

       Author’s Note

      Many of the locations used in this story exist, but not exactly as portrayed. All events and characters, however, are completely fictional, and any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

       chapter one

       Friday, August 4

      There were things Joe Shoe missed about Toronto; August was not one of them. The moment he stepped out of the refrigerated interior of Terminal 1 of Toronto Pearson International Airport the heat and the humidity hit him like a truck. There was not the slightest breeze and the air hanging over the airport, trapped by the invisible bowl of a temperature inversion, was the colour of thin chicken broth. It tasted bitter on the back of his tongue, and he imagined he could feel it eating away at the lining of his lungs.

      “Welcome to the Big Stink,” muttered a man who had been on the same flight, to no one in particular.

      Shoe removed his jacket and slung it through the shoulder strap of his carry-on. Despite the stench of engine exhaust, hot rubber, and sun-baked concrete, he caught the faint, delicate aroma of Muriel’s scent, still clinging to the material. Five hours earlier, as he and Muriel Yee had stood outside the security gate in the departure concourse of Vancouver International Airport, she’d put her arms around him as she’d raised herself up onto her toes to kiss him.

      “Have a safe flight,” she’d murmured against his mouth. “And have a nice visit with your family. I will miss you, you know. A bunch.”

      Shoe wasn’t convinced she would miss him at all. She wouldn’t have time. Since Patrick O’Neill’s and Bill Hammond’s deaths the previous December, Muriel had become Hammond Industries’ vice-president of corporate development. The job kept her busy and she loved every minute of it. They had tried living together for a while, but had kept getting in each other’s way; both had lived alone for far too long to adjust easily to cohabitation. They spoke every day, tried to see each other at least once during the week, and Muriel usually spent weekends at Shoe’s ramshackle old house in Kitsilano, when she wasn’t working — or when he wasn’t. They both pretended the arrangement suited them.

      To his left, a car horn blared. Shoe turned, expecting to see Hal, his older brother. A woman with pale blond hair yahooed shrilly over the roof of a dusty black Volvo. She wasn’t yahooing at him, but at the man standing next to him. Shaking his head and smiling self-consciously, the man grasped the handle of his wheeled suitcase and dragged it toward the Volvo.

      “Taxi, sir?” asked a dishevelled, turbaned attendant, beads of perspiration on his bearded cheeks. “I’m sure I got one big enough,” he added, looking up at Shoe’s lanky six-foot-six frame.

      “Not yet, thanks,” Shoe replied. He’d give Hal another ten minutes.

      He’d told his brother on the phone the week before that it would not be necessary to pick him up, but Hal had insisted. “There’s something I need to talk to you about,” he’d said.

      “We’re all having dinner together the day I arrive,” Shoe had said. “Can’t it wait till then?”

      “Not really,” Hal had said impatiently. “I want to talk to you before Rae does.” Rae was their younger sister, Rachel. A long pause, then: “She hasn’t called you, has she?”

      “No. What’s this about, Hal? Is everything all right?”

      “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

      “You sound a bit stressed, that’s all. What is it you want to talk about?”

      “I don’t want to go into it on the phone,” Hal had replied. “I’ll see you at the airport.” Then he’d hung up.

      Shoe gave Hal fifteen minutes before signalling the attendant to get him a cab. Forty minutes later, the cab deposited him in front of his parents’ house on Ravine Road in the northern Toronto suburb of Downsview. As the cab pulled away, Shoe stood for a moment at the foot of the driveway, one of the few on the block that was still unpaved. A bright yellow Volkswagen New Beetle was parked in front of the garage. Rachel’s car, he assumed. Since getting her first VW at eighteen, she’d driven nothing else: the original Beetle, a Karmann Ghia convertible, a Rabbit, and two Golfs. She’d owned more cars than Shoe had owned suits.

      He looked at the house in

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